With the members of the most powerful men and women assembled at the Congress, a presidential proclamation that "Freedom is our gift to the world" is only to be expected, but what is not is that it comes from the first woman president of United States. No, it is not about George W. Bush collapsing to a weak heart but about Geena Davis taking her seat in the Oval on primetime.
The world of make believe now believes that true freedom is to see a woman don the role of US President and perhaps change the world in a way that her manly predecessors could not. The Thelma and Louise star, makes her presence on ABC television as Mackenzie Allen, the Republican Vice-President who is swiveled to the top job when President Roosevelt Bridges falls prey to a devastating aneurysm. "Mac" as she is known rushes back from Paris to Washington, to face pressure from the dying President and other fellow party members to resign as her “sex” that played a role in her election now does unsuitable to take on Presidency. The only other contender dictated by the constitution is the House speaker, the rather arrogant Nathan Templeton (played by Donald Sutherland).
The series Commander-in-Chief attracts female audiences as Mac's dilemmas throw open the subtle differences in the way a woman president or contender to presidency would act. Even as her communications director pens the resignation speech, a male aide suggests, "A female president…Can't you smell the history". But what is fiction may not be far away from the truth, as it has already set off a debate as to whether a time will come for a woman to reign over the White House with polls suggesting that 79% of Americans may not mind having a woman president. It may take real life Templeton-like arrogance to make a potential woman candidate to even more passionately chase presidency, even if he does not exactly say, "The world is in turmoil…Now is not the time for social advances".
An overpoweringly familiar story about US presidency is irresistibly different because of the double-X-chromosome. Cinema and TV have portrayed every kind of President, doppelgangers (Kevin Kline in Dave) to stunt-heros (Harrison Ford in Air Force One) but missed out on a woman president. Even as ABC pitches the “Commander” series against NBC's The West Wing, it draws a possibility to another Clinton administration, but this time headed by Hill and not Bill. Already there are 14 women senators out of 100 in US itself and elsewhere in the world, women have headed nations like Britain, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Israel and not to mention the early Nordic countries. By the looks of it, even the tough Germany is likely to have a woman president.
So what really makes America favor the XY gender to be a president. Do not Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State and Hillary Clinton match the strides of numerous counterparts endowed with the male advantage. But even the promising show, fails to be far from sexist, with an accident taking the lady to the country's helm rather than qualifications and beset by a traditional the woman managing the office, home and children image (spilling grape juice on her shirt before a presidential address?). For now sexism prevails even if a real Mrs. President does not.
